Wang Anshi and Su Shi were literary scholars of the same period, and they were also selected into the list of "Eight Great Masters of the Tang and Song Dynasties" for their outstanding literary achievements. As the shining literary artists of the same era, they have a certain intersection in life and work, and naturally there will be many anecdotes.
First of all, let's talk about Su Shi, Who is gifted and intelligent, who has been recited and exported into chapters, is an outstanding literary scholar of the Northern Song Dynasty, and is known as "li taibai's wind and current, and the agility of Cao Zijian"; and then look at Wang Anshi, Su Shi and Wang Anshi are officials in the same dynasty, Wang Anshi is also the leader of the times, he is first-class in literature and history, his works are equal, and he and Su Shi are outstanding writers of the same period.
Su Shiguan was a scholar of Hanlin, and was an official in the same dynasty as Wang Anshi, and Wang Anshi was a counselor and governor at the time, ranking above Su Shi, and Wang Anshi valued Su Shi's talents. However, Su Shi was arrogant and self-assured, and he was very knowledgeable, and he was mostly opposed to some of the policies formulated by Wang Anshi, and his words were ridiculed.
The two of them had different views on the change of law, and often disagreed. Therefore, in the interaction and getting along between the two, they often compete secretly, and from the perspective of knowledge alone, the two are often very unconvinced by each other.
Regarding their interaction, in the literary works of later generations, there are many interpretations, and in the Ming Dynasty literary scholar Feng Menglong's "Cautionary Tales", there is an article entitled "Wang Anshi Three Difficulties Su Bachelor" vividly records the anecdotes and anecdotes in the interaction between the two.
From these anecdotes, it is not difficult to see the differences in political views and ideas between the two, and it can also be seen that the two have their own strengths in academic and academic fields.
The most important thing in Wang Anshi's life was the change of law he implemented during the song Shenzong period, and the new study was the philosophical basis of Wang Anshi's idea of changing the law, and since the reign of Emperor Yingzong of Song, when Wang Anshi was lecturing in Jinling, a large number of young scholars who demanded the reform of the status quo and the imperial examination system gathered under Wang Anshi's door, as if forming a new school. At the same time, Wang Anshi's idea of "one morality and one common custom" has gradually matured and become fixed.
When Wang Anshi came to power during the reign of Emperor Shenzong of Song, he put this idea into action and combined it with the reform of the imperial examination, rather than just verbal propaganda. With the support of Emperor Shenzong of Song, Wang Anshi's Compilation of the Three Classics of New Righteousness was transformed into the official imperial examination syllabus as the standard answer for taking the ranks.
In particular, Wang Anshi's compilation of "Character Sayings", also known as "Xining Character Sayings", is an important role in Wang Anshi's implementation of the "new learning" in his famous new law. In such an environment, "all beings take the Wang Clan Sutra as their teacher" and "those who have been alone in the world for sixty years", Wang Anshi used his administrative power to seek the unity of academic opinions.
Wang Anshi pursued a new authentic position of ideological unification to meet the needs of political reform; but it also suffocated the atmosphere of free discussion of scholarship that had been created since Ouyang Xiu, which naturally aroused the dissatisfaction and criticism of Su Shi, who advocated freedom.
For this "Character Saying", Su Shi was very dismissive, so the first "confrontation" between them was related to this "Word Saying".
Once, Wang Anshi and Su Shi discussed the text and talked about the word "Po", and the two of them had their own opinions. According to the explanation in Wang Anshi's "Character Sayings", the word slope is from "soil" to "skin", so Wang Anshi believes that "slope is the skin of soil". Su Shi smiled, "As Xiang Gong said, the slippery word is the bone of water." After Wang Anshi heard this, his heart was displeased.
Another time, Wang Anshi and Su Shi talked about the word "salamander", according to the interpretation of Wang Anshi's "Character Sayings", the salamander word from "fish" to "child", together is the meaning of the son of the fish. Su Shi's brain widened, and he teased: "According to your explanation, doesn't the word 'dove' mean nine birds?" Mao's poem says: 'The singing dove is in Sang, and its son is seven xi.' That is to say, the dove has seven children, plus two parents, and isn't it nine birds? ”
After Wang Anshi listened, he was speechless for a while, but his heart was very disgusted with Su Shi, so he transferred a paper order to move Su Shi left to Huzhou Zhizhou.
Su Shi worked as a zhizhou in Huzhou for three years, preparing to return to Beijing to report for duty, and when he returned to Beijing, he thought that he had offended Wang Anshi because of his own verbal dispute, and ended up being degraded, and this time he should take the initiative to shake hands and make peace. Therefore, after Su Shi returned to Beijing, he came to Wang Anshi's house, and just as Wang Anshi was taking a nap, Su Shi waited in the study.
Su Shi sat idly in Wang Anshi's study, so he got up to look at the furnishings of the study, and he suddenly saw that there was a plain note under the yantai on Wang Anshi's desk, and the verses on the desk were not finished, and the title had been prepared, but only the first two sentences were written: "The west wind passed through the garden last night, blowing off the yellow flowers and full of gold", Su Shi looked at it, this is a Yongju poem. Then, Su Shi read these two poems again, and felt that there were some errors in the poetry of his two poems.
In Su Shi's view, the west wind prevails in autumn, and chrysanthemums bloom in late autumn, with a long flowering period and the most durable, allowing them to dry and rot, letting the wind and rain drench, and will not wither and fall petals. At the thought of this, Su Shi could not hold back, and Yi Yun added the last two sentences to the note: Autumn flowers are no better than spring flowers, saying and the poet carefully chanted.
After completing the verses, Su Shi thought about whether this would make Wang Anshi embarrassed, but he was afraid that he would cause unnecessary trouble; if he tore the poem manuscript, it would not be systematic. Thinking about it left and right, he felt that it was inappropriate, so Su Shi put the poem back in its original place and resigned.
Unexpectedly, this meeting ended in such a way. The next day, with an edict, Su Shi was demoted to Huangzhou as the deputy envoy of the regiment.
Su Shi served in Huangzhou for nearly a year, in the blink of an eye it was late autumn, one day suddenly a strong wind blew, Su Shi was idle, reading in the house, suddenly thought that Huangzhou Dinghui Dean had given him a few yellow chrysanthemums, planted in the back garden, why not enjoy it?
So after the wind stopped, he came to the back garden under the chrysanthemum shed, only to see that the ground was covered with gold, the chrysanthemum petals fell to the ground, and there was no chrysanthemum on the branches. Su Shi was stunned for a moment, half speechless, at this time Fang knew that the chrysanthemums in Huangzhou would indeed fall petals in late autumn.
This matter has become a knot in Su Shi's heart, he feels that it is the shallowness of his own experience and misunderstands Wang Anshi's poetry, he often mentions this matter to his friends, once he said to his friend that he is now degraded, only to think that Wang Anshi is a private vendetta, who knows that it was me who was wrong. Su Shi used this incident to warn his friends himself, and also warned his friends: Do not easily ridicule people, just as the so-called one thing is long and wise.
Su Shi felt ashamed in his heart, so he wanted to find an opportunity to make amends to Wang Anshi. At this time, it was time to go to Beijing to report on his work, so Su Shi wanted to take this opportunity to apologize to Wang Anshi in person, and he remembered that when he was about to leave Beijing, Wang Anshi had entrusted himself to take the water of the Three Gorges Gorge to use to flush the Yang Envy tea, but because he had been unconvinced in his heart, he had already left the matter of taking water behind.
So Su Shi thought of taking advantage of the winter solstice festival to send a congratulatory watch to Beijing, and took the water of the Middle Gorge to visit Wang Anshi to eliminate the misunderstanding between the two.
Did not want to be tired of the boat for several days, when passing through the Middle Gorge, Su Shi actually fell asleep, and when he woke up, he had already reached the lower gorge, and then returned to the boat to absorb the water of the Middle Gorge and was afraid of delaying the time to return to Beijing, he listened to the boatman say that the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River are connected by one water, and there is no barrier. The water of the Middle Gorge and the Lower Gorge are both Yangtze River water, which is difficult to distinguish. After Su Shi listened, he installed a porcelain altar and went down the gorge, sealed the porcelain altar with oil paper, and took it back to Beijing.
After Su Shi returned to the capital, he took the water of the Yangtze River to visit Wang Anshi, Wang Anshi let people take Su Shi to the study, Su Shi thought of changing poems here last year, his heart was ashamed, and he saw that there was a Yongju poem posted on the pillar in the house, the last two sentences he wrote that year were impressive, Su Shi was ashamed in his heart, and asked for Wang Anshi's forgiveness, Su Shi said that he had seen chrysanthemums with fallen petals in Huangzhou. So the two looked at each other and smiled, and Wang Anshi forgave Su Shi's previous offense.
Wang Anshi asked Su Shi again if he had brought water from the Middle Gorge, and Su Shi said that he had brought it and put it outside the hall. Wang Anshi asked people to carry the porcelain altar into the study, personally wiped it with his sleeve, opened the sealing paper on the porcelain altar, and let the servants boil tea on the fire and cook it with silver water. Wang Anshi first took a white bowl, and threw a handful of Yang Envy tea in boiling water, and the tea color was half-dim.
Wang Anshi asked where did this water come from? Su Shi said that it was the water of the Wuxia River, and Wang Anshi laughed: "I have come to deceive me again, this is obviously the water of the lower gorge, how can it pretend to be the middle gorge?" Su Shi was horrified, and hurriedly defended that he had misheard the locals, the Three Gorges were connected, and the rivers and rivers were the same, but I don't know how you can tell them.
Wang Anshi said in a serious tone, readers must not hear hearsay, must be carefully observed, if I have not been to Huangzhou, I have seen chrysanthemum petals, how dare I scribble in the poem? The theory of the water nature of the Three Gorges, out of the "Supplementary Notes on the Water Classic", the water in the upper gorge is too urgent, and the water in the lower gorge is too slow, and only the water in the middle gorge is half as slow and urgent. If you use the Water of the Three Gorges to flush the Yang Envy tea, then the upper gorge taste is strong, the lower gorge taste is light, the middle gorge is thick and light, and the tea color only appears for half a day when the tea is boiled, so it is concluded that this is the water of the lower gorge.
Su Shi admired Wang Anshi's life experience and knowledge, and Wang Anshi opened the bookcase again and said to Su Shi: "You just have to take a book from these twenty-four bookcases and read a sentence on it, if I can't answer the next sentence, even if I am an unlearned person." Su Shi specially selected those books that had accumulated more ash and had obviously not been watched for a long time to test Wang Anshi, who knew that Wang Anshi actually answered like a stream. Su Shi was impressed by Wang Anshi's profound knowledge.
In fact, most of the anecdotes of Su Shi and Wang Anshi in literary works were fabricated and processed by literati. In the history of Wang Anshi and Su Shi, in addition to their differences in ideological understanding, both of them admired each other's literary achievements, because they both achieved the highest literary achievements of their time, and they were also selected into the list of "Eight Greats of the Tang and Song Dynasties".
In the seventh year of Emperor Yuanfeng of the Divine Sect, Su Shi was given the opportunity to reactivate, and he returned to the capital from the land of Huangzhou, passing through Jinling, and he wrote a letter in advance to Wang Anshi, who had retired here, saying that he would visit him in Jinling. At this time, Wang Anshi had retired from his job, was idle at home, old and frail, and had just experienced the pain of losing his son, and his mood was very sad and depressed.
Su Shi's visit made Wang Anshi extremely moved, and he personally rushed to the dock to meet Su Shi. On the day when Jinling met, they traveled to Zhongshan, a famous place in Nanjing, sang poetry and wine, and got along very happily. Of course, in this Jinling meeting, they still talked about the current situation, but they did not dwell too much on the past grievances.
As twin stars in the literary world, Wang Anshi and Su Shi have a common feature in their poetry, that is, they love to use dangerous rhymes. Su Shi has two famous poems "Fu Xue", using extremely dangerous rhyme feet "tip" and "fork", Wang Anshi read it with great admiration, because "Love Qixue poetry can rhyme with rhyme" and rhyme again, reaching as many as six.
After Wang Anshi's death, Su Shi once read a six-character poem by Wang Anshi in his early years, "Titled West Taiyi Palace Wall", which made Su Shi look back on the past and sigh for a long time, so he also wrote two six-character poems that rhymed for the first time to express his deep sympathy and nostalgia for Wang Anshi, a former colleague and poet friend. Later, after Su Shi read Wang Anshi's lyrics "Guizhixiang Jinling Huaigu", he was even more sincerely admired and admired that "this old man is a wild fox spirit".
These anecdotes of Wang Anshi and Su Shi also show that although they have different views on some people and some things. However, in literature, they are real acquaintances, and they are more of a literati, but a pity for each other.
The little glory and disgrace of the career path cannot be provoked by a wave, and their outstanding poetry and articles will always shine, because they all understand the truth that "the article is good for eternity, and the eunuch is prosperous for a while".